Posted on 09/04/2007 3:44:08 PM PDT by Shermy
The real question is why did Bremer recommend disbanding the Iraqi army? My guess is Bush thought Bremer knew what he was doing, that proved to NOT be true -- so Bremer was out.
Not Bush's fault, Bremer's fault.
Thing is, no one else publicly supports Bremer there.
The Shi’a explanation, looking back to 1991, is lame. To many invocations of Hitler too - always the loser’s argument.
Something else was in the mix.
I agree with you. However they characterized it, the Iraqi army was going to have go through a Humpty Dumpty phase where it was essentially rebuilt from scratch. And old ways were going to have to be unlearned (e.g. exterminating Kurds and Shiites) and truly new ways learned (e.g. civilian control of the military as opposed to military control of the civilians).
Hussein's military killed tens of thousands of Shiites. Do you really think the Shiites were just going to forget that?
What would the situation today be, if the Saddam era Army had NOT been disbanded? The same people who denounce Bush would still denounce Bush for the boneheaded decision of NOT disbanding Saddam's Army. The Iraqi Army maintained from Saddam would be riddled with Baathists and insurgency supporters. They would be totally corrupt and costing American and Iraqi lives.
I'd like the denouncers to name one Arab Army that is better than today's Iraqi Army. Just one.
Good points.
Recall that the old Iraqi Army is the one that fought Iran for ~eight years~ only to end up settling around the same border as before. Doesn’t say much for either side, really.
Give the new Iraqi Army a little time and things will turn out differently, should there be the opportunity.
Say... now ~that~ gives me an idea... :-)
I don’t think dismantling Saddam’s army was where the problem arose. The problem came from telling all bath party officials that they could not play a role in the new government when nearly everyone who had any power at all was a member of the Bath party including the military. You send these people about their own business after telling them they will never have any power again? That was stupid and provided the human fuel for an insurgency. It would be as if we turned the remaining Nazi soldiers and party aparachicks loose in post WWII Germany.
That’s one of the suspicious phrasings of Bremer. He introduces the article with the words “Iraqi army”, which in its common sense means the regular army. But in the passage you select he uses “military” which would include the Republican Guard. Yes, the Shiites would not want the Republican Guard reconstituted, the “perpetrators” of 1991. No one on our side ever advocated that.
Think of it this way, in Germany the “SS”, like the Republican Guard, was part of the German “military.” So was Germany’s regular army under that umbrella term. But no one would call the “SS” the “German Army”.
So - Who is telling the truth? I the soon-to-be-released GW biography, that very question was asked - and GW’s response was that the plan was to keep the Iraqi Army in tact...
My thoughts also
And with the reconstitution more selectivity was possible (I Hope)
“and GW’s response was that the plan was to keep the Iraqi Army in tact...”
I read that. And he couldn’t articulate why the policy changed, referring to his aide’s “notes” would have to be checked. The biographer apparently didn’t follow up (if he could), but the purpose of the book was not about that action.
We disbanded the Wehrmacht after WWII and for good reason. The Wehrmacht was the living embodiment of Prussian militarism which had existed since Scharnhorst’s rebuilding of the German General Staff along Napoleonic lines.
“We disbanded the Wehrmacht after WWII and for good reason.”
The German Army did not cut a deal with us and sat in their barracks and let us come in to take on the SS and Gestapo.
Your view is a good and valid one. But it was our policy to retain the army, then the policy changed. What were the reasons? Maybe there are good ones, but Bremer’s explanation was weak.
Oh, so our Forces didn't beat the Iraqi army, they laid down for us. Yeah, tell that to the 3rd ID and the Marines. From what I've heard, most of the Iraqi soldiers who didn't die or were captured lost the uniforms and hid their weapons to fight another day or just went home. I doubt if they assembled at their barracks. They disbanded themselves.
Ahh wonderful.........another thread begging for all wartime arm-chair quarterbacks and Bush bashers!!!
I'm pretty certain it is because of the strong response we got from the Kurds and the Shiites. I've looked without success for supporting quotes from people like Foaud Ajami -- who reportedly stated that we would have alienated the Shiites from day one if we had kept the army intact. Unfortunately though, Ajami's book 'The Foreigner's Gift' is not set forth online and I am too cheap to buy it, so I will have to continue looking for further sources on this subject and will post them here if I am successful.
I suspect that the argument that we should have kept the Iraqi army intact is just another opportunity to bash "Bush's War."
It's easy to pretend that things would have been better if Saddam's army had been kept in existence.
I wonder how we could ever really know if keeping Saddam's army intact would have been the better choice
When we first took over South Korea from the Japanese in 1945, we kept the Japanese in important positions, because the Koreans had not been trained to fill those posts.
Policy & Direction : The House Divided
The Japanese heritage had left very few Koreans qualified for responsible posts either in government or in industry.Railway jobs, for example, even as yardmen, much less as engineers, were beyond the experience and skills of most Koreans.
No trained public administrators existed.
Faced with these facts, General Hodges decided to keep some Japanese officials in responsible posts during a transition period.
On the day after he reached Korea, Hodge appointed General Nobuyuki Abe, wartime governor-general of Korea, temporary head of the Korean Government, to serve under American supervision. Hodge promised that Americans would replace the Japanese officials as soon as possible, and Koreans would, in turn, replace the Americans. His assurances proved to be a mistake. Deeply offended at seeing their old rulers apparently still in control, the Koreans reacted violently, forcing Hodge to dismiss the Japanese and to place many less able Koreans in governmental offices.
By December 1945, almost 75,000 Koreans, many of them of dubious qualification, were holding governmental positions. [13]
Would it have been a good idea to have kept the Nazi army intact in post-WWII Germany?
Should we have kept Emperor Hirohito's army intact in post-war Japan?
I imagine that many of the Iraqis would have reacted violently to any efforts to keep Saddam's army.
“Oh, so our Forces didn’t beat the Iraqi army,”
Correct in a direct way. We defeated the Republican Guard, Fedayeen, and Jihadis. I think what they mean by “light resistance” is some regular army units around Baghdad gave a token fight. The bulk of the regular forces were deployed on the Iranian and Kurdish border. They sat in place, did not respond to Saddam’s commands to redeploy for a southern invasion.
Could you provide some links for that info?
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